Monday, January 24, 2011

Stupid Origins

I promise you, I understand that comic books are just for fun. I know that no irradiated spider will give you super powers, and there are no aliens out there passing out green rings, but there are some origins that are so stupid you have to laugh when you read it. Here are some of the worst:

Hawk and Dove

I love these guys, I need to say that up front. Hank and Don Hall remain my favorite duo team of all time, but the origin is a little weird. They're locked in a shed and want a way to help their father before he is killed by gangsters. A mysterious voice starts talking and offers them power to help and thus the heroes are born.

I have mentioned many things I wanted in my life and have yet to have a mysterious voice answer and offer me superpowers. I'm a tad disappointed.

It would be over 20 years before anyone attempted to explain where the powers came from in an issue of "Secret Origins". Apparently, it was from a talking dragon. No lie.

Whizzer

Besides having one of the worst names for a superhero in history (yeah, you know what you're thinking when you hear that name and it has nothing to do with running fast), he also has one of the worst origins.

Where does he get his speed? Is it from a lightning strike to chemicals? Maybe an alien beam? Nope. He was in Africa on a trip, and got bitten by a cobra so they gave him a transfusion of mongoose blood. This, in turn, gave him super-speed.

Now, last time I checked, a mongoose isn't a speedster. They may be quick little buggers, but they don't outrun cars or anything. Just imagined how powerful he'd been if they'd given him a little cheetah blood! He'd have been faster than light! And speaking of speedsters...

Kid Flash/Wally West

Lightning strikes chemicals and makes a police scientist a superhero. I can live with that, believe it or not. What bothers me is how they reused the origin exactly--in the same place even--with Kid Flash!

Almost 30 years later they would try to offer an explanation as to why it happened (Speed Force, Flash as a lightning bolt, etc), but that wasn't what they originally had in mind. Originally this was just an easy out in an attempt to create a sidekick for the Flash so they could cash in on Robin's popularity in the Batman titles.

There was any number of ways they could have done this, but this is one instance where I think the writers just got lazy.

In other news, Marvel announced it is getting out of the "All Ages" comics after Captain America: The First Avenger goes out in April. What do you think? Does anyone read all ages comics now anyway? Does this mean "Superhero Squad" will now have Nick Fury dropping the F bomb as he splats MODOK with ice cream?